Feedback extortion

[bad_manors]

Hi All,

The weather is wonderful, the breeze is balmy, all is semi-wonderful. Almost time to break out the collection of Aloha shirts.

But i digress. I'm in the process of dealing with a buyer looking for a refund. This would be fine if I wasn't getting the feeling that he's working a Feedback Extrortion hustle. He's clever enough to make any threats veiled.

What do I need to know about feedback extrtion? I feel the need to piddle in this guy's cornflakes.
The odd thing is that we would have done at least a partial refund with pleasure if this guy didn't come on like a pitbull with a mail order law degree.

Any help and wisdom you might provide would be appreciated.

[moogie1*]

As far as I know, unless his threats are clear rather than implied, I don't think ebay will act. But you could send his email including the full internet header to ebay anyway.

[moogie1*]

BTW, sorry to hear you're having trouble with this buyer. It'd be so much easier if they just tried to be square with the seller instead of trying to play games.

[recped]

Have you left your feedback yet?
"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915

[systemagic]

You could, perhaps, buy this auction as a gift for him: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0505120077may12,1,4482661.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

[shoplineca]

Brad
(1st for some reason I am still allowed on this forum to post so I will get in my comments before getting the boot of this board)

FB Extortion is almost imposible to prove to eBay such that they will act on it.

Essentially it is never considered FB Extortion when forcing you to give a refund or get negative FB. Nor is it to get you to first leave positive FB or get negative FB in return.

Generally the person must be threateneing you with negative FB to give him something that was not to be included in the acution such as he buys a pair of pants but threatens negative FB of you dont include a jacket for free.

The easiest way I look at whether FB extortion is something that eBay considers a violation is for any instance where eBay is loosing money.

In the case of a free jacket, had that been in your listing, then eBay would have gotten extra fees in the extra money that would have been bid towards the final sale.

So when examinig whether FB extortion is worthy of bringing up to eBay, just look at it the nature of what is being asked and determine if and how eBay would be loosing any additional fees they could have earned should you proceed and give in to the threat and not bill anything extra for it.

If eBay could have made money, it may be considered as FB extortion, however you must have written proof of the threats.

Malcolm

[chuck111fishing]

Ya you got that right. I have one buyer at the present time has insult me my intellegence and my business. reorting them is useless. Ebay has to do something abou the way people buy than extorte you for more stuff or feedbacks.

But like always instead of keeping it simple they have to make big large and faulty.
chow

[smokeandflames1950]

I had a buyer win an auction and not pay. He later left very negative feedback on my 100% perfect record.
Later he sent me email with snide comments about how he ruined my perfect record. He did that a couple of times.
I forwarded his Email to Ebay and they said they couldn't remove the negative feed back EVEN though it was a PayPal auction and no record of the guy ever paying.

Now I don't worry about it at all. Potential buyers can see that the odd negative person is a stand out jerk in a a long list of positive feedback customers.